Trump vs China
Trump vs China
Trump vs China
What a fucked up world where we are cheering on China. Fucking trump.
Red > orange
If they suck at each other, then that's way less bad. Root for simultaneous knockout punches.
They both suck.
The workforce is unionizing even if their union is pretty terrible.
Definitely just a toss up of where this is going.
Art of the deal
Shart of the deal
Fart of the Seal.
The Fart and The Squeal
You’re fucked when the other party has read it too.
I don't think anyone needs to read his book up know he's a fuck up. China doesn't care how much we try and upset their apple cart, they aren't going to play Trump's game.
You say "too" here, but it's doubtful that Trump has actually read his book.
He famously had it ghost written, but fucked up the deal hard enough that his ghost writer got full writing credit on the cover.
Big flex from China. I'm waiting for a country to call trump's bluff by putting an export tax on their own goods sent to the USA.
Canada should have done this on everything. If the Americans can afford the tariff then there is room for us to charge more. Not really but yeah should do it.
If only.. America holds 20% of global purchasing power so an export tax like that would result in needing to lower local interest rates to boost domestic productivity, which would decrease foreign investment, eventually weakening the local currency.
It would be hilarious if a country that exports very little to nothing to the US did it to make a point though. Totally on board with that.
China is already weakening their currency to keep their exports (worldwide) more attractive.
America
holdsheld 20% of global purchasing power...
Truth be told, I think the only thing we really produced in the US was the US dollar. Sounds like it's the number 1 export for the US, and trump just toppled demand for it.
Or, they just pay the tariff themselves. Could you imagine China going, "Cool bro, we'll just absorb the cost ourselves. Now what?"
I mean, that's what trump said they would do. That would make him look like a genius.
That wouldn't really do much for China. The reason the tariffs hurt us is that we sent all our manufacturing to them (along with a few other countries). So the tariffs only make our stuff cost more. Footing the bill like that would just weaken China's position.
What would happen is the US dollar would be weaker, profits selling to the US weakened. It would still harm us primarily.
All the more reason for MAGAs to hate China - they were MEAN to Daddy!
Dealing. Is an art.
Too much art, not many deals. 😔
The Art of the Deal
grift
Bankruptcy never tasted so good?
Didn't this happen last time? Less dramatically, but still.
He puts in a bunch of tariffs. China reciprocates. The market is thrown into chaos. He shouts and screams. China ignores him. He backtracks. China ends the tariffs but doesn't do anything to try and appease him. He claims it's a victory. His fluffers say the tariffs were just to bring China to the table, which justifies the hit to the market, despite the fact China didn't come to the table and President Pigshit didn't articulate what China could actually give him to end the tariffs.
Yes, but this time he also decided to tariff the whole world.
Fucking clown.🤡
'hurrrr art of the deal' Fucking. Clown.
Wish somebody told him he didn't have the cards.
The cards are made in China
Held 7/2 off suit, hit nothing on the flop that he got to see for free, and then went all in.
He is one card short of a full deck.
No he only has the joker
Everyone is somehow missing China cutting off rare earth metals the US relies on for technology and defense
It wasn't just stopping exports to the US, they've stopped exporting rare earth elements worldwide starting yesterday. Plus, they are starting to unload billion of debt we owe them. It's almost as if Trump is intentionally trying to destroy our country in the morning, and then later in the day he wants to be the bully negotiator without understanding his precarious position.
You remember r/shitamericanssay? Last time he won, there were a lot of people talking about stuff Europe has but America doesn't, and, if you browse the posts there, a lot of Americans responding how Europe is backwards, in the stone age, and what they do have is paid for by America, out of benevolence.
Well, those folks are in charge now.
There wouldn't be much point merely stopping export to the US because some other country could just on-sell to the US.
He really doesn't understand his precarious position and the harm he has done and is doing.
That's gonna tank the dollar hard
Sounds good to me
I'm realizing the structure of our supply chains is not common knowledge at all. Basically everything has a part from China. That and plastic.
This is how the CoD storyline started.
I think the story here will go very differently now that the US army can't ensure it's exclusively pro-US.
the whole world actually, thanks Trump!
Despite that, Fox News will continue stacking his invisible laurels. Doesn't matter if his policy does anything. All that matters is that his followers are convinced that the policies are doing something.
Everyone turn on your ad blocker and go look at that website, it’s (2024-)incredible it’s legal to be so disingenuous
I made the mistake of visiting yesterday and I will never not be dumber because I read their first seven headlines plus at least a dozen comments
That’s right, those headlines are the dumbest things you’ve ever seen on the planet… but then you scroll to the bottom of an article
Pray for me
Technically crashing the entire fucking economy in like a month is doing something
One hundred percent spot on.
...
Trump keeps begging for China deal while bragging about phone calls kissing his ass. No foreign meetings. No envoy sent to China.
China limits US studio film releases
Bessent says Tariffs are no joke. China must make a deal.
Chinese airlines refuse Boeing+parts deliveries (reported as "China orders", but leopards were not going to make US aerospace affordable at 125% tariffs.
I think Xi might have figured out Trump’s secret. He has no fucking clue what he’s doing. He scares people into reacting by being reckless, then claims a win for getting a reaction.
Ignoring trolls takes their power away.
China discovers the secret to life:
Don't feed the trolls.
never interrupt your enemy while he is fumbling his shit. or something.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
("Quand l'ennemi fait un faux mouvement, il faut se garder de l'interrompre" --Napoleon)
They're not really ignoring him though. They've discontinued exports of rare earth and are dumping debt. It's a calculated strategic response to capitalise on an epic mistake.
This only works if you're China. Most other countries would just be ignored
Not really, he backed down on tariffs last week thanks to Canada and Japan. The truth is, Trump has put the US into a very, very precarious position. They have a lot of debt to refinance soon, and if the rest of the world wanted to, they could dramatically increase the interest rates paid on that by coordinating a sell-off of US debt.
Putin has had trump's number for years
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-weak-strongman
Basically, this strategy Trump and Putin and their ilk do never works outside of their little bubble. Their whole game is to tear everyone else in their sphere of influence down to their level, so that they can compete effectively and dominate, but there are always significant threats outside of the sphere. Against which we are now more or less powerless.
"secret"
I hope other leaders learn from this.
Do nothing, win!
As much as I don't like the Chinese government for all the censorship and etc, they do really know what they're doing in terms of managing the economy and the infrastructure it relies on, as far as I can tell. Including their education system, it's fairly shocking how many of the top engineering and CS colleges are in China.
I was gonna post that one but "What is this business strategy called" gets me every time
I love how everyone just sort of glazes over how astoundingly unpopular Steam was when it was first introduced.
I was one of them. They proved my fears unfounded (so far). They've also managed to convert me to a fanboy at some point. I realised I was playing a co-op game brought off steam, on my steam deck, via a steam link to the TV, and the wife using a steam controller.
It was unpopular cause it was kinda ass tbh.
It's called not being an utter moron.
It turns out that maximizing for shareholder profit isn’t a sustainable way to run a business, and it actually burns your company to the ground after a few short years.
Also, not being an insufferable douche-nozzle.
That's business school from a guy who ran casinos into the ground. Nice work America.
I thought the consensus was that was money laundering?
I found this https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-taj-mahal/index.html
So it’s at least alleged and they paid to settle. But wouldn’t you want to keep your laundry working? Idk
The best next step:
China does nothing (keeps their tariffs)
I hope. I'll miss my cheap goods but I have enough. I feel bad for young americans as cheap goods was one of the only perks left to living in this country.
Cheap gas I guess will be one of the last dominoes to fall. That, and the collapse of the petro-dollar system, will be the final nails in the coffin of our economy.
That's very possible. Trump gave them excuse to do this. They already set up a deal with Korea and Japan (and each two hate each other), and if they would set up a trade deal with EU then the US will be the only loser.
Trump really hurt US with the tariffs on everyone (except Russia, North Korea and Belarus)
best deal in the history of deals
Maybe ever...
Extortionist fails
Then everyone dumps on him, and he says the roll back was fake news and it's still happening, but nobody even in the administration knows what's going on.
but nobody even in the administration knows what's going on.
"Least of all the horse."
The horse... used the elevator? ...I didn't know he knew how to do that.
The shart of the deal.
The shart that is too real
Haha yes
THE ART OF THE DEAL
lol got wrecked you orange bitch.
Art of the deal
There is a total of 350 million Americans. Fuck every single one of them for not stopping fascism from taking their government.
I don't care if you felt like you did your part, it wasn't enough. It was on you, now it is on all of us. Fuck Americans.
The problem is that no one is at the breaking point yet. You can still go to work, buy things, have a family day, and if you're a US citizen, you feel safe.
Now, will that change? Yes, it will. Then maybe enough people will wake up, but until then... no one is going to risk death or getting their families killed. No mass organized resistance to join. Don't act like it wouldn't happen to your country either because it can.
It's not easy to just saddle up against the greatest superpower to ever exist on Earth.
Yeah all these people are acting like there was a 'Stop Fascism' button we just decided not to press which is just ignorant. It's easy to be Mr. TearTheSystemDown from behind a keyboard an ocean away. If it really affects them so much and is so easy why not just come over and do it yourself?
While not an armed one, you know that protests are a resistance, right? Like, dunno, 50501.
AmeriCants.
Some country had to take one for the team. You're welcome for reminding the world that fascism is bad. It needed the reminder. It really needed the reminder.
what does "fascism" even mean? i get the impression people use it to describe "things they don't like". is there any clear definition?
I'm American, and I agree.
Say what you will about China’s political system. At least it is much more of a meritocracy. The politicians who climb up the ranks are the ones who have a proven record of achievements.
In the US the people can elect a charlatan with no experience whatsoever, i.e. an outsider, and some will spin this as a good thing. Would you hire an outsider doctor or plumber?
Edit: since people are failing to understand the idea. Remember how Republicans mocked Obama for being a community organizer? Imagine the opposite, any president must have some demonstrable experience as a community organizer. It is not a panacea, Obama still committed war crimes and was beholden to moneyed interests but much much much more qualified than Trump could ever be. Merit doesn’t mean the person will be good but that they will be qualified.
Dude, fuck the CCP, just like because the GQP are turds doesn't mean the CCP are the good guys
They didn't say the CCP are good, they said they are competent.
There is just no way in hell that Xi Jinping (age 71 right now) keeps being the best option for China's leadership for 10+ years under a meritocratic ideal.
He's better than Trump obviously but so is a warm piece of cow shit.
Not sure whether Xi keeping the job is faltering of the CCP's ideal of collective leadership, or him being the guy the collective leadership wants as figurehead. They certainly don't want a second Mao that's for sure.
The politbureau/party can still elect a new leader even if term limits are removed. There is democracy for "qualified voters" in China.
Very meritocratic... like there are literally zero women in the Politiburo
Are you implying that women aren't smart enough to be in government?
Seems like sexism to me.
This is the same "Anti-DEI" bullshit that's not that different from the current US administration.
Wait, based on what are you saying this? That's a complicated to verify claim.
How is it a complicated to verify claim? Even if you choose to ignore the obvious outcomes, there’s plenty of publications and studies about it. That’s the problem with limiting yourself to “China experts” from the West, they never bother to learn the language or learn about China’s history and politics.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-8057-2_23
In China all politicians including the premier start out as civil servants and a required to pass an entrance exam and have to climb up the ranks.
The US could probably adopt some of this without changing too much. A simple spelling test could have weeded out Trump. Ideally, a number of years of experience in civil service/local politics, should also be required to run for president.
It should be be implicitly obvious so it shouldn’t be explicitly stated. But we are simply comparing how the two systems position people of power. It is not about the people themselves in the positions. Think of it like a company that has its CEO climb up the ranks from an entry level employee vs a company that brings outsiders. Except the latter company leaves the decision to mostly an unqualified mass that sometimes hires a highly unqualified person. Both companies can be evil, or the former evil and the latter good, none of this matters to the point that I’m making.
Not really the CCP is basically using a reformed Mandarin system. To rise within the ranks of the party they look at a combination of how well the thing you administered (e.g. a state factory) performed in comparison to whatever is comparable, as well as opinion polls of the local population, which aside from making sure that you won't be hated (which could cause disquiet and if there's one thing the CCP doesn't want then that's that) also doubles at sniffing out manipulated numbers, the people are generally quite good at spotting corrupt officials. If you rank well within your cohort you get promoted from administering a factory to administering local industry, then regional, etc, etc. What doesn't happen any more is grading people based on how good their poetry is as well as cutting off their balls but the basic system is, broad strokes, similar to how Imperial China educated and selected its civil servants.
That doesn't mean that there's not corruption and grift going on, there's still some degree of princeling privilege but it's basically impossible to fail upwards in the CCP. Knowing people or being someone's kid might open some doors, but it's not going to guarantee you anything. It also means that the top ranks are full of for lack of better characterisation engineer bureaucrats.
Or, put differently: If the CCP was completely incapable they would've long lost power. Their whole legitimacy hinges on being perceived as good administrators, they know that, and they're doing their darnedest to not lose it. Propaganda and secret police alone is not sufficient, history has shown that again and again, you actually need to be good at stuff that's important to people or they cease to tolerate you.
The politicians who climb up the ranks are the ones who have a proven record of achievements
I don't know where you got that from.
At least it is much more of a meritocracy.
This isn't at all true. It has the same corruption as everywhere else. Those in power do everything they can to keep it. Why do you think Pooh Bear got himself made president for life? That wasn't on merit, he just had enough political power to make it that way.
He got up to the point that he can do that through merit. He didn’t suddenly get elected as premier. The point I’m trying to make went right past you. “I point to the stars, you look at my fingertips”.
This isn’t about Xi himself or Trump himself. Xi could be worse than Netanyahu, Trump could be better than Sinwar. It is about how those in power get there, how the system selects its leaders. I tried giving an analogy in my other comment.